Reflections of the Kingdom

Life Surrendered: Finding Freedom at the Cross by Jessica Herberger My rating: 4 of 5 stars This is a devotional focused upon the events of Good Friday, with an imaginative reflection to help us obtain a new understanding of the Cross. Told in 16 chapters across four (4) parts, with each chapter devoted to a “little” death (detachment) that we should embrace. Each chapter is a mix of imaginative exegesis of the relevant scripture along a few personal anecdotes. For a devotional with the goal of reimagining the events of Good Friday, there really isn’t a lot that is new here (or even very controversial), but are a few that stand out … such as the observation that Simon (the man pressed into carrying the Cross of Jesus for a time), would have needed to completely reverse direction to do so (something I never really considered before).  As might be expected, the personal vignettes are hit or missing with my own experience, but they are all short and...

48 Laws of Spiritual Power: Uncommon Wisdom for Greater Ministry Impact by Frank Viola My rating: 5 of 5 stars This book was targeted primarily to "those who regularly preach or teach God’s Word" … which the author immediately expands to include all the faithful “because every true disciple of Jesus is called to be a servant - a minister - in some capacity.” Thus all of these “Laws,” or Rules, are designed to super charge your ministry by ultimately strengthening your relationship with the God and allow Him to do the heavy lifting … basically it repeats what virtually every spiritual self help books says … you can do nothing on your own. Each Law is introduced with a clear title that summarizes the concept, then specific examples of the issues along with practical steps to identify the issues in your own ministry and/or how to correct them when you find them. Most of these are fairly common and even intuitive … but many are still difficult to put ...

Preaching to a Divided Nation: A Seven-Step Model for Promoting Reconciliation and Unity by Matthew D. Kim My rating: 4 of 5 stars It seems that everywhere I go these days, I see a sharply divided [American] society; which is why I was very curious about a book designed to address this division (or at least how to preach to both sides). Most of what I found was fairly intuitive and somewhat generic vs something with more practical application. It beings with a focus on the reconciling mission of God through the incarnation of His son as found in the Scriptures. I doubt anybody would take an exceptions with this as it is pretty much the foundation of Christianity proper. Then we move into how we as a society classify and categorize our relationships and why that is so dangerous for Christian community (aka the four ‘isms). Again … interesting by not terribly controversial (or useful) … especially without any specific advice on how to get folks to actu...

  Our Junior year was year two (2) of three (3) as a Candidate and was when we were officially installed into the Ministry of Lector by one of the Boston area bishops ... prior to that we were required to get fitted for, and purchase a basic alb (you can see me in this on the right), to which I added a rope cincture.  The book I am receiving is (fittingly) the Lectionary.  To be somewhat honest, I couldn't figure out how this was any different than what I was already doing at my own parish as a Lector, so it seemed more like an advancement ceremony than anything else. Academically this was perhaps the hardest year.  In the fall we had "Church History" and "Pastoral Theology" then in the spring we had "Pastoral Care", "Social Teaching" (doesn't count toward the MAM) and "Ecclesiology."   In addition, we were supposed to find a Deacon mentor in a parish setting in order to "shadow" him during a range of pastoral experien...

The Cross-Shaped Life: Taking on Christ's Humanity by Jeff Kennon My rating: 4 of 5 stars I was very curious about the author’s take on what is arguably the central concept of Christianity … to live like Christ.  There really is nothing terribly new here; however, the author does provide a highly accessible treatment of the subject that is useful for instruction and meditation on the Christian Life … why was the cross necessary and significant is covered in the first half; although we don’t get much in the way of how the cross actually calls us [Christians] to live Christ’s example [and how to do so] until the second half … with a fair amount of repetitive thought and discourse along the way.  Ultimately we get the idea that “Sacrifice” is “at the core of the cross” … meaning that we are called to walk a path of sacrifice in service to others … this probably won’t come of much of a surprise for most [devout] Christians; however, it does provide an ...